The graduating workforce : a tracer survey of university graduates on the Malta labour market

Abstract

The dual meaning of the term graduation is not incidental. The ceremonial event which marks the successful completion of a course in tertiary education is at the same time a social marker, an event which initiates the successful into a meritocracy, and assigns a socially recognised emblem of distinction and difference which sets a person apart in society and, presumably, at the workplace. To what extent, however, is this the case in practice? And in what manner does tertiary education graduate among members of the labour force? How do the graduating workers envisage such a graduation? And how do these aspirations dovetail, or clash, with the expectations of employers?